"But," he said. "You are here to see Tessa."
Jem looked at him levelly. His eyes were gray-black, like slate shot through with streaks of obsidian. "And you did not think I would take the chance, whatever chance I could, to see you, too?"
"I did not know. You left, after the battle, without a farewell."
Jem took a few steps forward, into the room. Will felt his spine tighten. There was something strange, something bone-deep and different about the way Jem moved now; this was not the Shadowhunter's grace Will had trained himself over so many years to mimic, but something strange and alien and new.
Jem must have seen something in Will's expression, for he paused. "How could I say farewell," he said, "to you?"
Will let the knife fall from his hand. It stuck, point-down, in the wood of the floor. "As Shadowhunters do? Ave atque vale. And forever, brother, hail and farewell."
"But those are the words of death. Catullus spoke them over his brother's grave, did he not? Multas per gentes et multa per aequora vectus advenio has miseras, frater, ad inferias--"
Will knew the words. Through many waters borne, brother, I am come to thy sad grave, that I may give these last gifts to the dead. Forever and ever, brother, hail. Forever and ever, farewell. He stared. "You--memorized the poem in Latin? But you were always the one who would memorize music, not words--" He broke off with a short laugh. "Never mind. The rituals of the Brotherhood would have changed that." He turned and paced a few steps away, then spun abruptly to face Jem. "Your violin is in the music room. I thought you might have taken it with you--you cared for it so."
"We can take nothing with us to the Silent City but our own bodies and minds," said Jem. "I left the violin here for some future Shadowhunter who might wish to play it."
"Not for me, then."
"I would be honored if you would take it and care for it. But I left something else for you. In your room is my yin fen box. I thought that you might want it."
"That seems a cruel sort of gift," Will said. "That I might be reminded ..." What took you away from me. What made you suffer. What I searched for and could not find. How I failed you.
"Will, no," said Jem, who, as always, understood without Will having to explain. "It was not always a box that held my drugs. It was my mother's. Kwan Yin is the goddess depicted on the front. It is said that when she died and reached the gates of paradise, she paused and heard the cries of anguish from the human world below and could not leave it. She remained to give aid to mortals, when they cannot aid themselves. She is the comfort of all suffering hearts."
"A box will not comfort me."
"Change is not loss, Will. Not always."
Will pushed his hands through his damp hair. "Oh, yes," he said bitterly. "Perhaps in some other life, beyond this one, when we have passed beyond the river, or turned upon the Wheel, or whatever kind words you want to use to describe leaving this world, I shall find my friend again, my parabatai. But I have lost you now--now, when I need you more than I ever did!"
Jem had moved across the room--like a flicker of shadow, the Silent Brother's grace light upon him--and now stood beside the fire. The firelight illuminated his face, and Will could see that something seemed to shine through him: a sort of light that had not been there before. Jem had always shone, with fierce life and fiercer goodness, but this was something different. The light in Jem seemed to burn now; it was a distant light and a lonely one, like the light of a star. "You don't need me, Will."
Will looked down at himself, at the knife at his feet, and remembered the knife he had buried at the base of the tree on the Shrewsbury-Welshpool road, stained with his blood and Jem's. "All my life, since I came to the Institute, you were the mirror of my soul. I saw the good in me in you. In your eyes alone I found grace. When you are gone from me, who will see me like that?"
There was a silence then. Jem stood as still as a statue. With his gaze Will searched for, and found, the parabatai rune on Jem's shoulder; like his own, it had faded to a pale white.
At last Jem spoke. The cool remoteness had left his voice. Will breathed in hard, remembering how much that voice had shaped the years of his growing up, its steady kindness a lighthouse beacon in the dark. "Have faith in yourself. You can be your own mirror."
"What if I can't?" Will whispered. "I don't even know how to be a Shadowhunter without you. I have only ever fought with you by my side."
Jem stepped forward, and this time Will did not move to discourage him. He came close enough to touch--Will thought distractedly that he had never stood so close to a Silent Brother before, that the fabric of the parchment robes was woven of a strange, tough, pale fabric like the bark of a tree, and that cold seemed to emanate from Jem's skin the way stone held a chill even on a hot day.
Jem put his fingers under Will's chin, forcing Will to look directly at him. His touch was cold.
Will bit at his lip. This was the last time Jem, as Jem, might ever touch him. The sharp memory went through him like a knife--of years of Jem's light tap on his shoulder, his hand reaching to help Will up when he fell, Jem holding him back when he was furious, Will's own hands on Jem's thin shoulders as Jem coughed blood into his shirt. "Listen to me. I am leaving, but I am living. I will not be gone from you entirely, Will. When you fight now, I will be still by you. When you walk in the world, I will be the light at your side, the ground steady under your feet, the force that drives the sword in your hand. We are bound, beyond the oath. The Marks did not change that. The oath did not change that. It merely gave words to something that existed already."
"But what of you?" said Will. "Tell me what I can do, for you are my parabatai, and I do not wish you to go into the shadows of the Silent City alone."
"I have no choice. But if there is one thing I could ask of you, it is that you be happy. I want you to have a family and grow old with those who love you. And if you wish to marry Tessa, then do not let the memory of me keep you apart."
"She may not want me, you know," Will said.
Jem smiled, fleetingly. "Well, that part is up to you, I think."
Will smiled back, and for just that moment they were Jem-and-Will again. Will could see Jem, but also through him, to the past. Will remembered the two of them, running through the dark streets of London, jumping from rooftop to rooftop, seraph blades gleaming in their hands; hours in the training room, shoving each other into mud puddles, throwing snowballs at Jessamine from behind an ice fort in the courtyard, asleep like puppies on the rug in front of the fire.
Ave atque vale, Will thought. Hail and farewell. He had not given much thought to the words before, had never thought about why they were not just a farewell but also a greeting. Every meeting led to a parting, and so it would, as long as life was mortal. In every meeting there was some of the sorrow of parting, but in every parting there was some of the joy of meeting as well.
He would not forget the joy.
"We spoke of how to say good-bye," Jem said. "When Jonathan bid farewell to David, he said, 'Go in peace, for as much as we have sworn, both of us, saying the Lord be between me and thee, forever.' They did not see each other again, but they did not forget. So it will be with us. When I am Brother Zachariah, when I no longer see the world with my human eyes, I will still be in some part the Jem you knew, and I will see you with the eyes of my heart."
"Wo men shi sheng si ji jiao," said Will, and he saw Jem's eyes widen, fractionally, and the spark of amusement inside them. "Go in peace, James Carstairs."
They stayed looking at each other for a long moment, and then Jem drew up his hood, hiding his face in shadow, and turned away.
Will closed his eyes. He could not hear Jem go, not anymore; he did not want to know the moment when he left and Will was alone, did not want to know when his first day as a Shadowhunter without a parabatai truly began. And if the place over his heart, where his parabatai rune had been, flared up with a sudden burning pain as the door closed behind Jem, Will told himself it was only a stray ember from the f
ire.
He leaned back against the wall, then slowly slid down it until he was sitting on the floor, beside his throwing knife. He did not know how long he sat there, but he could hear the noise of horses in the courtyard, the rattle of the Silent Brothers' carriage pulling out of the drive. The clang of the gate as it shut. We are dust and shadows.
"Will?" He looked up; he had not noticed the slight figure in the doorway of the training room until she spoke. Charlotte took a step forward and smiled at him. There was kindness in her smile, as there always was, and he fought to not close his eyes against the memories--Charlotte in the doorway of this very room. Didn't you recall what I told you yesterday, that we were welcoming a new arrival to the Institute today? ... James Carstairs ...
"Will," she said, again, now. "You were correct."
He lifted his head, his hands dangling between his knees. "Correct about what?"
"About Jem and Tessa," she said. "Their engagement is ended. And Tessa is awake. She is awake, and well, and asking for you."
When I am in the darkness, I will think of it in the light, with you.
Tessa sat upright against the pillows Sophie had carefully arranged for her (the two girls had embraced, and Sophie had brushed the tangles from Tessa's hair and said "bless, bless" so many times that Tessa had had to ask her to stop before she made them both cry) and looked down at the jade pendant in her hands.
She felt as if she were split into two different people. One was counting her blessings over and over that Jem was alive, that he would survive to see the sun rise again, that the poisonous drug he had suffered from so long would not burn the life out of his veins. The other--
"Tess?" A soft voice at the door; she looked up and saw Will there, silhouetted in the light from the corridor.
Will. She thought of the boy who had come into her room at the Dark House and distracted her from her terror by chattering about Tennyson and hedgehogs and dashing fellows who come to rescue one, and how they were never wrong. She had thought him handsome then, but now she thought him something else entirely. He was Will, in all his perfect imperfection; Will, whose heart was as easy to break as it was carefully guarded; Will, who loved not wisely but entirely and with everything he had.
"Tess," he said again, hesitating at her silence, and came in, half-closing the door behind him. "I--Charlotte said you wished to speak with me--"
"Will," she said, and she knew she was too pale, and her skin was blotchy with tears, her eyes still red, but it didn't matter, because it was Will, and she put her hands out, and he came immediately and took them, closing them in his own warm, scarred fingers.
"How are you feeling?" he asked, his eyes searching her face. "I must speak with you, but I do not wish to burden you until you are in full health again."
"I am well," she said, returning the pressure of his fingers with her own. "Seeing Jem has eased my mind. Did it ease yours?"
His eyes darted away from hers, though his grip on her hands did not slacken. "It did," he said, "and it did not."
"Your mind was eased," she said, "but not your heart."
"Yes," he said. "Yes. That is exactly it. You know me so well, Tess." He gave a rueful smile. "He is alive, and for that I am grateful. But he has chosen a path of great loneliness. The Brotherhood--they eat alone, and walk alone, rise alone and face the night alone. I would spare him that if I could."
"You have spared him everything you could spare him," Tessa said quietly. "As he spared you, and we all tried so hard to spare one another. In the end we must all make our own choices."
"Are you saying I should not grieve?"
"No. Grieve. We both shall. Grieve, but do not blame yourself, for in this you bear no responsibility."
He glanced down at their joined hands. Very gently he stroked the tops of her knuckles with his thumbs. "Perhaps not," he said. "But there are other things I do bear responsibility for."
Tessa took a quick, shallow breath. His voice had lowered, and there was a roughness to it she had not heard since--
his breath soft and hot against her skin until she was breathing just as hard, her hands smoothing up and over his shoulders, his arms, his sides ...
She blinked hastily and withdrew her hands from his. She was not looking at him now but seeing the firelight against the walls of the cave, and hearing his voice in her ear, and it had all seemed like a dream at the time, moments drawn out of real life, as if they were taking place in some other world. Even now she could barely believe that it had happened at all.
"Tessa?" His voice was hesitant, his hands still outstretched. A part of her wanted to take them, to draw him down beside her and kiss him, to forget herself in Will as she had before. For he was as effective as any drug.
And then she remembered Will's own clouded eyes in the opium den, the dreams of happiness that crashed into ruins the moment the effects of the smoke wore away. No. Some things could be managed only by facing them. She took a breath, and looked up at Will.
"I know what you would say," she said. "You are thinking of what happened between us in Cadair Idris, because we thought Jem was dead, and that we, too, would die. You are an honorable man, Will, and you know what you must do now. You must offer me marriage."
Will, who had been very still, proved that he could still surprise her, and laughed. It was a soft laugh, and rueful. "I did not expect you to be so forthright, but I suppose I should have. I know my Tessa."
"I am your Tessa," she said. "But, Will. I do not want you to speak now. Not of marriage, of lifelong promises--"
He sat down on the edge of the bed. He was in training gear, the loose shirt pushed up around his elbows, the throat open, and she could see the healing scars of the battle on his skin, the white remembrance of healing runes. She could see the beginning of hurt, too, in his eyes. "You regret what happened between us?"
"Can one regret a thing that, however unwise, was beautiful?" she said, and the hurt in his eyes softened into confusion.
"Tessa. If you are afraid that I feel reluctant, obligated--"
"No." She put up her hands. "It is only that I feel your heart must be a tangle of grief and despair and relief and happiness and confusion, and I do not wish you to make pronouncements when you are so overwhelmed. And do not tell me you are not overwhelmed, for I can see it upon you, and I feel it myself. We are both overwhelmed, Will, and neither of us is in any fit state to make decisions."
For a moment he hesitated. His fingers hovered over his heart, where the parabatai rune had been, touching it lightly--she wondered if he was even aware he was doing it--and then he said, "Sometimes I fear you may be too wise, Tessa."
"Well," she said. "One of us has to be."
"Is there nothing I can do?" he said. "I would rather not leave your side. Unless you wish me to."
Tessa let her gaze fall to the bedside table, where the books she had been reading before the automaton attack on the Institute--it felt like a thousand years ago--lay stacked. "You could read to me," she said. "If you would not mind."
Will looked up at that and smiled. It was a raw, strange smile, but it was real, and it was Will. Tessa smiled back. "I do not mind," he said. "Not at all."
Which was how, some quarter of an hour later, Will came to be sitting in an armchair, reading from David Copperfield, when Charlotte pushed the door of Tessa's room gently open with her fingers and peered inside. She could not help but be anxious--Will had looked so desperate slumped on the floor of the training room, so very much alone, and she remembered the fear she had always harbored, that if Jem ever left them, he would take all the best of Will with him when he went. And Tessa, too, was still so fragile....
Will's soft voice filled the room, along with the muted glow of the light from the fire in the grate. Tessa was lying on her side, her brown hair spread over the pillow, watching Will, whose face was bent over the pages, with a look of tenderness in her eyes, a tenderness mirrored in the softness of Will's voice as he read. It was a tenderness so intimate
and so profound that Charlotte stepped away immediately, letting the door fall noiselessly shut behind her.
Still, Will's voice followed her down the corridor as she walked away, her heart a great deal lighter than it had been moments ago.
"... and cannot watch over him, if that is not too bold a thing to say, as closely as I would. But if any fraud or treachery is practicing against him, I hope that simple love and truth will be strong in the end. I hope that real love and truth are stronger in the end than any evil or misfortune in the world...."
24
THE MEASURE OF LOVE
The measure of love is to love without measure.
--attributed to Saint Augustine
The Council room was full of light. A great double circle had been painted upon the raised dais at the front of the room, and in the space between the circles were runes: runes of binding, runes of knowledge, runes of skill and craft, and the runes that symbolized Sophie's name. Sophie knelt in the center of the circles. Her dark hair was unbound and fell to her waist, a ripple of dark curls against her darker gear. She looked very beautiful in the light that streamed from the skylighted dome above, the scar on her cheek red as a rose.
The Consul stood above her, her white hands upraised, the Mortal Cup held within them. Charlotte wore simple scarlet robes that billowed around her. Her small face was serious and severe. "Take the Cup, Sophia Collins," she said, and the room was breathlessly silent. The Council chamber was not full, but the row Tessa sat at the end of was: Gideon and Gabriel, Cecily and Henry, and her and Will, all leaning forward eagerly, waiting for Sophie to Ascend. At each end of the dais stood a Silent Brother, their heads bent, their parchment robes looking as if they had been carved out of marble.
Charlotte lowered the Cup, and held it out to Sophie, who took it carefully.
"Do you swear, Sophia Collins, to forsake the mundane world and follow the path of the Shadowhunter? Will you take into yourself the blood of the Angel Raziel and honor that blood? Do you swear to serve the Clave, to follow the Law as set forth by the Covenant, and to obey the word of the Council? Will you defend that which is human and mortal, knowing that for your service there will be no recompense and no thanks but honor?"